O.C. softball players still play for gold

June 14, 2010

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 12:28 p.m.

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Delaney Spaulding, 15, of Rancho Cucamonga, handles a ground ball during USA Softball Junior Women's National Team tryouts last week at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. Spaulding, who plays shortstop for the Orange County Batbusters 16-under squad, was one of 42 players hoping to land one of the 17 spots. PHOTO COURTESY JAMIE BLANCHARD, ASA/USA SOFTBALL, TEXT BY MARCIA C. SMITH/THE REGISTER

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Lauren Chamberlain, 16, of Trabuco Canyon, handles a ground ball during USA Softball Junior Women's National Team tryouts last week at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. Chamberlain, a strong-hitting third baseman for the California Worth Firecrackers 18-under Gold squad, was one of 42 players hoping to land one of the 17 spots. PHOTO BY JAMIE BLANCHARD, ASA/USA SOFTBALL, TEXT BY MARCIA C. SMITH/THE REGISTER

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Pitcher Nancy Bowling, 16 of Simi Valley, took the circle during USA Softball Junior Women's National Team tryouts last week at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. Bowling, who plays for the Orange County Batbusters 18-under Gold squad, was one of 42 players hoping to land one of the 17 spots. PHOTO BY JAMIE BLANCHARD, ASA/USA SOFTBALL, TEXT BY MARCIA C. SMITH/THE REGISTER

Delaney Spaulding, 15, of Rancho Cucamonga, handles a ground ball during USA Softball Junior Women's National Team tryouts last week at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. Spaulding, who plays shortstop for the Orange County Batbusters 16-under squad, was one of 42 players hoping to land one of the 17 spots.PHOTO COURTESY JAMIE BLANCHARD, ASA/USA SOFTBALL, TEXT BY MARCIA C. SMITH/THE REGISTER

CHULA VISTA – There's a mock medal podium – a three-tiered plywood stage – positioned in front of a painted mural of spectators at the U.S. Olympic Training Center.

It's mostly tourists who pose there and take pictures at the facility where four Team USAs trained before wining softball gold medals at the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Summer Games and begrudgingly settling for silvers, losing to Japan, in the sport's 2008 Olympic swansong.

The International Olympic Committee has since dropped softball from its program beginning in London in 2012, but that hasn't stopped young American girls, especially those in Orange County softball hotbed, from playing and cherishing an Olympic dream.

"I still think there's a chance I can play for an Olympic medal with 'USA' across my chest," said Lauren Chamberlain, 16, of Trabuco Hills. "I've been playing since I was 8 and watching the U.S. softball team in the Olympics every summer. I grew up thinking, 'I want to be like them.'"

Sadly, visiting the 150-acre Olympic Training Center at the base of Otay Lakes and standing on the pretend medal stand might be the farthest the 42 girls at last week's USA Softball Junior Women's National Team selection camp can go for gold.

These girls, all 18 or younger, are caught in the middle of sports politics' double play.

They are old enough to have been influenced by the American's Olympic softball campaign, by Lisa Fernandez's fastball, by Jennie Finch's drop and by Crystl Bustos' Babe-Ruthian cuts, but too young to have competed for spots on the 2008 team that won gold in the Beijing softball swansong.

They are young and talented enough to be able to take advantage of the many college scholarship opportunities now available to softball players, but they may be too old to play in the Olympics by the time international crusaders effective move the slow ... moving... political ... caterpillar IOC and restore the sport's medal status.

"I try not to worry about that now," said shortstop Delaney Spaulding who lives in Rancho Cucamonga and plays travel ball for the Orange County Batbusters 16-under squad. "It's unfair that softball isn't in the Olympics because so many girls play it. But I just turned 15, so maybe softball will be back before it's too late for me."

The soonest softball would likely be reinstated as part of the Olympic program is the 2020 Games. Delaney would be 25 and in her softball-playing prime. All the other girls in this week's camp are older and would likely have aged their ways out of the window.

"There is still plenty of life outside the Olympics, like traveling around the world and playing for World Championships and helping to bring attention to the sport for future generations," said pitcher Nancy Bowling, 16, of Simi Valley, who plays for the Orange County Batbusters 18-under Gold squad. "When I look around here, the talent is so amazing, and playing at the top level of the sports is what matters."

For these girls, playing at the top level means making not the 2010 Olympic Games in London, not the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio but the III Pan American 18-and-under Softball Championship in Bogota, Colombia in August. That event is a qualifier for the International Softball Federation IX Jr. Women's World Championship in Cape Town, South Africa in December.

"I'm happy to travel anywhere," said Chamberlain, a Firecrackers slugger and third baseman, who during her junior season at El Toro High batted .514 with 17 home runs. "It's going to be a huge challenge just to make the team. I've played around a lot of these players all my life."

The Amateur Softball Association of America, through its coaches in its junior program, chose the 42 camp participants from a "watchlist" of more than 300. More than a third of the 42 campers either reside in Orange County or play for the elite Orange County-based travel programs such as the Batbusters or the California Worth Firecrackers.

They are all jockeying for one of the 17 spots on the junior national team. They arrived on Thursday night to stay at the team hotel. They brought with them almost exclusively softball gear: bats, glove, cleats. They each received two T-shirts (red or blue) with a roster number silkscreened on back, shorts, a visor and a sticky name tag. Each had to wear the name tag everywhere, even during games.

For Friday and Saturday, all they did was play softball, from the 7:45 a.m. start of drills to the 9:45 a.m. start of scrimmages that would last until 5 p.m. – with a one-hour break for lunch. Their every move was on display for a five-member selection committee, which included Mississippi State coach Jay Miller, 2008 Olympic team assistant Karen Johns and ASA elite athlete representative and former national-level player Amy Hillenbrand.

Like "American Idol," the judges were seated a table behind the backstop, making observations and taking notes. Each judge scored each player at each position for each day of drills and four scrimmages.

"It's the most softball I've ever played in one day in my life," said Chamberlain. "This is my first national tryout ever, so it's very demanding."

The days were broken down into innings. Each scrimmage was seven innings. Each inning featured five batters. Pitchers changed every inning. Through eight scrimmages, every pitcher got to face every batter.

The morning drills, which featured situational fielding and hitting, "are designed to make sure we see all the skills," said ASA executive director Ron Radigonda. "You could go an entire game and not get one ball hit to you."

On Friday morning the softball field – and the four riders pedaling and flying through the undulating BMX course – kept the Olympic Training Center from being a complete ghost town.

A winding, half-mile walk from the entrance, past the vacant tennis courts and empty soccer and rugby fields and unused batting cages led to a gathering of about 50 parents who sat on bleachers or in their own folding chairs. They took pictures, talked with other proud moms and pops and sighted their daughters in binoculars on the field in the distant canyon below.

There was noise: The chiseling sound of the aluminum bat against the neon-yellow ball, the smack of a strike in a catcher's mitt, the rip of Laguna Hills second baseman Kylee Lahners' throw to first and the Gatling-gun blasts of in-game conversation, constant chants from the dugout and chatter of "C'mon 1-2!" from the infield echoed.

This was only a scrimmage. No scores. No three outs. No champions.

This was a junior national tryout. No All-America players on the roster. No Fernandez, Finch or Bustos. Not yet.

But maybe one of these campers will climb onto the Olympic medal stand for real.

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